


tell me something nice like flowers and blue skies

by orphan_account



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: 5 + 1 times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 10:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24968044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Five times Alexi gets flowers for Emily, and one time Alexi receives flowers, too.
Relationships: Emily Kaldwin/Alexi Mayhew
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	tell me something nice like flowers and blue skies

**one**

Emily’s first impression of Alexi Mayhew is one of bright sunshine-yellow and pollen tickling her nose. Or, to be clear: Emily’s first impression is of the bouquet of sunflowers that is thrust violently into her face when Alexi trips over an uneven patch of ground and tumbles headfirst into Emily’s stomach with an ungodly screech. Emily would like to say that she catches her and keeps them both upright, and maybe that they lock eyes instantly and the world stops moving around them, but neither of those things are true. They just fall down in a heap.

Emily moans with pain. Not at the physical pain—no, that doesn’t bother her. She’s imagining what Callista is going to say when she sees Emily’s suit, a custom one of ivory velvet and pure gold thread ordered all the way from Tyvia, now streaked with dirt and torn in more than a few places.

The worst part is that Callista isn’t going to be mad, or even annoyed. She’s just going to set to mending it as best as she can, all the while raising her infamous Disappointed Eyebrow.

And there is absolutely _nothing_ that makes Emily feel more ashamed than the Disappointed Eyebrow.

In any case, it is in a rather foul mood that Emily gets her second impression of Alexi, which is of a messy mop of soft auburn hair currently lying tucked under Emily’s chin. It might sound romantic, but it’s not. Emily’s ribcage hurts from the weight, and she shoves the other girl off of her with a muffled “oof.” Her hands sting from the gravel that’s ground into her skin and at the moment she really couldn’t care less.

“What in the Void was that for?” she demands, hating how petulant she sounds but too irritated to calm herself down. “Were you trying to knock my teeth out? Oh, that’d be a fine way to ruin me. ‘The Toothless Empress!’ As if ‘the Child Empress’ isn’t bad enough.”

“Your Imperial Majesty—” the girl looks properly terrified, her cheeks pale with fear. It makes her freckles stand out like water droplets on parchment.

“What are these even for, anyway?” Emily grumbles, taking a few of the flowers to examine with greater detail than necessary so she doesn’t have to keep staring at the girl. Her anger is fading already, and guilt is rising bitter in its place; again and again, it seems, she proves that she can’t keep her temper. Her mother would never have spoken so harshly to a subordinate (and, as the Empress, _everyone_ is a subordinate.) To top it off, this girl can’t be any much older than Emily, by the looks of it. Twelve, maybe thirteen. She’s certainly not to blame for a simple mistake. Emily misses being in a position where it was alright for her to make a simple mistake, but that doesn’t make it fair for her to take it out on someone else.

“I’m sorry for shouting at you,” she says, a little grudgingly, but she does mean it.

The girl’s expression lightens immediately, and the corner of her mouth curves upward. She looks like the sort of person who smiles easily, and the sort of person who makes other people smile easily, too. “Oh, that’s alright, Your Imperial Majesty! I should’ve been watching where I was going. And—” her smile turns a little bashful, “—the flowers are for you, actually.”

“For me?” Emily says blankly.

“His Lordship Aren Crawford asked me to deliver them to you, along with… well, along with a note asking for your hand in marriage.”

“ _Marriage!_ ” Emily blurts out, aghast. “He’s _seven._ ”

The girl bites her lip, looking like she is trying to stop smiling but can’t quite manage it. “Yes, Your Imperial Majesty, he is, and quite in love with you. I was supposed to recite poetry to you on his behalf, as well, but I don’t think you’d like to hear the poem he wrote.”

Emily shakes her head, baffled but reluctantly curious. “Oh? And why’s that?”

“He compared your eyes to hagfish eggs,” the girl says, giving up and grinning outright. “He meant well, I’m sure.”

Emily grins too, the last vestiges of her bad mood finally seeping away. “I know. Aren’s too sweet to ever mean anyone harm.” She scoops up the rest of the sunflowers, and gives them a hearty, dramatic sniff that makes her want to cough. “And the flowers are nice, anyway. Did he pick them himself?”

The girl’s cheeks tinge a faint blush of pink, expression turning bashful. “No, I did. Do you—do you like them? I heard one of the maids say that yellow was your favorite.”

“Oh.” Emily finds herself blushing too, though she’s not sure why. “It is. And I love them. Thank you.”

She realizes that they’re both still splayed on the ground, and if her suit wasn’t beyond help before, it’s soaked up enough mud that it certainly is now. Oh well. Maybe the memory of meeting this girl with such a warm, infectious smile will help her muddle through the coming hours of enduring the Disappointed Eyebrow.

She pushes herself up and reaches out a hand. “What’s your name?”

“Alexi,” the girl says, taking the hand. Emily pulls her upright and nearly topples them both over again. Alexi falls against Emily’s shoulder and giggles. It’s a bright, bubbly sound that makes Emily want to laugh, too, and so she does.

“I’m Emily,” she says after a moment. She’s still laughing a little, and it distorts the words, but Alexi understands her anyway.

“I know that, Your Imperial Majesty,” she says, brow wrinkling in confusion. “Everybody knows your name.”

“No, I meant you can call me that.” Emily steps back a bit, and grabs Alexi’s hands instead. “Just Emily. Because we’re going to be great friends, I can tell, and only stuffy nobles have to call me ‘Your Imperial Majesty.’” She knows it’s silly, but she means it.

“Okay,” Alexi says. “Just Emily.”

She bends down and picks up the bouquet, and offers it to Emily with a bow and a flourish. Emily takes it, but Alexi snags back one stem from the bunch, the smallest of them all. She ignores Emily’s puzzlement and pushes up on her tiptoes to tuck it under the headband in Emily’s hair. Without thinking Emily immediately reaches up to pull it out, but Alexi shoos her hands away.

“It makes you look real,” Alexi says. “You always look so serious and still. My mother has porcelain dolls that look like that, and it doesn’t look right on a person.”

“And the flower helps?”

Alexi tucks a lock of hair behind Emily’s ear, and smiles a soft little smile that makes Emily’s heart jump. “Yeah. It does.”

**two**

The next time Alexi brings Emily flowers is over two years later, and it’s a little more on purpose and a lot less of a jovial occasion. Emily’s been laid up in her bedchambers for a couple of weeks at this point. Alexi’s not sure what happened, exactly, not the medical terms for anything, but she knows there’s something wrong with Emily’s leg. A piece of shrapnel from the grenade she threw got where it wasn’t supposed to be.

She knocks on the door and waits, fiddling with the flowers. They’re whale’s teeth blossoms. Emily’s favorite, next to sunflowers or void-roses, which aren’t blooming this time of year. Alexi doesn’t see the appeal of any of them—most flowers just make her want to sneeze.

But maybe these will make Emily smile. It doesn’t seem like anything can, lately.

“Come in,” Emily calls. Her voice is level and bright, but even through the door Alexi can hear the cooler tone behind the false cheer.

She holds the flowers behind her back as she enters. “Hey, Em.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Emily snaps. She turns over in bed, facing away from Alexi. She’s half-huddled under the blankets, like she’s hiding from something, though she would likely never admit it. She looks small; just a shadow in a large, empty room. Alexi wonders if she should open the drapes. It’s as depressing as walking into funeral services at the Abbey.

“I’ve always called you ‘Em,’” Alexi says carefully, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. She twists the bouquet in her hands and winces when one of the flower heads pops off and drops to the floor. She shoves it under the carpet with her shoe.

“Yeah,” Emily says, words muffled by her pillow. “And I hate it when you call me that. You did it when the Morleyan delegate was here last week. It was _humiliating,_ Alexi.”

Alexi bites her lip, heart sinking. “Okay,” she says. “I won’t do call you that anymore. I didn’t know that you didn’t like it.”

There’s a silence. It drags on unpleasantly for a rather long while before Emily sits up. She doesn’t quite face Alexi, but she isn’t hunched in on herself anymore, either. “No,” she says, very quietly. “It’s okay. You can still call me ‘Em.’”

Alexi manages a strained smile. “Thanks.” She holds out the bouquet. “I brought you these. I hope you like them.”

Emily looks at her. Her expression goes surprised, then pleased, then the emotions drain away as quickly as they came. She looks sad and worn and Alexi’s heart aches to look at her.

“Thank you, Alexi,” she says quietly. “Put them in the vase, please. I’ll ask Callista to get some water for them later.”

Alexi’s smile wavers. “Alright,” she says, trying to sound cheerful and not stiff as she arranges the bouquet in the vase on Emily’s nightstand. “How are you feeling today?”

“Like my leg doesn’t work right,” Emily says tartly, looking away again.

Alexi sighs. “Em. You know it’ll take time.”

“That’s all _anyone’s_ telling me!” Emily groans. “I know it’ll take time, Alexi, I’m not stupid. But forgive me if I’m still having some difficulty with trying to rule an empire from my bedroom. Everyone’s treating me like glass, the ones who’ll even come near me at all—I can’t exactly keep an eye on the Boyles, or the Buntings, or ninety percent of Parliament when I have no reason to summon them to me on a regular basis, now can I?”

Alexi feels a spark of irritation. Guilt rises alongside it; she has no right to feel angry at Emily when she’s the one who caused this, even if she had no idea this would be a consequence of her actions. Throwing the grenade back at the Regenters was pure instinct, and it turned out in their favor—except for Emily’s injury.

Sokolov says that it’s sheer luck that Emily will ever even be able to walk again.

Emily hasn’t taken very well to the forced recovery period. Neither has anyone else, really. Alexi hasn’t seen much of Lord Attano, recently, but he’s looked as haggard and sad as Emily does now.

“I know this is difficult for you,” Alexi starts awkwardly, hoping it’s the right thing to say.

“You don’t know at all,” Emily says. Then, after a weighted pause, “I know you’re just trying to be nice, Alexi. But things are just—hard, right now. But I’m not mad at you. I don’t blame you for this. You know that, don’t you?”

Alexi doesn’t, no. She hasn’t even figured out if she’s mad at herself, yet, much less anyone else’s feelings toward her right now. And trying to judge Emily’s mood lately is beyond impossible. She’s going stir-crazy shut up in this stupid room; that, at least, Alexi _does_ understand.

Emily sighs when Alexi doesn’t answer. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good company today. Maybe you should go.”

“Maybe,” Alexi says dully. She stands, and moves to the door. She lets her hand rest on the knob. “I—I’ll try to visit again soon. Mother has some leave this week, so she and I are going to Whitecliff this week to see Grandfather. But I’ll come see you as soon as I get back. I promise.”

“Thank you for the flowers,” Emily says. Her voice is flat. Empty.

Leaving feels like admitting defeat. The door shut between them is thick and impenetrable; there’s only dead silence from the other side.

Until Alexi hears the sound of glass shattering.

She takes a deep, ragged breath and pushes back her instinct to check on Emily. She nods to Lord Corvo, still standing guard hidden in an alcove across the hall, and goes to find her mother. She’ll bring more flowers next week, and maybe Emily will be better by then.

**three**

The blow comes out of nowhere. Emily barely dodges in time to keep from getting clocked in the side of the head, and she strikes out blindly in return, swearing when she only manages to barely clip her opponent in the shoulder. A moment more and her legs are swept out from under her. She lands hard on her back and the breath is knocked out of her all at once. A foot hovers over her throat, presses down the slightest bit.

“Alright, alright!” Emily cries out. “I yield.”

Alexi leans over into her line of vision, and grins triumphantly. “What was that you were saying about being able to beat me with a hand tied behind your back?”

Emily giggles-wheezes, still struggling to get her breath. “Oh, you know,” she gasps, “like Corvo says, intimidate your opponent and that’s half the fight already won.” She takes Alexi’s offered hand and finds herself hauled easily onto her feet like it’s nothing. Emily takes a moment to stare mournfully at Alexi’s biceps, shining with sweat and twice the size of her own. “Anyway, I’ll get you next time.”

Alexi smirks. “Sure you will, when rats fly.” Emily jokingly shoves her, and Alexi stumbles, breaking into a fit of laughter so loud that she sounds like a honking goose. She doubles over with it and actually drops to the ground, still laughing as she splays out on the cobblestone.

Emily plops down beside her for a moment, then quickly pops back up. “Ow,” she complains. “It’s _hot._ ”

Alexi groans loudly. “Everything’s hot. It’s summer, Em.”

“Summer in Dunwall? Preposterous!” Emily proclaims, and goes to sit in the grass at the edge of the courtyard. Alexi chuckles and comes to join her, letting out a sigh of relief as she stretches out again.

“Really though, this has to be the hottest summer in Dunwall history,” she muses.

“Not quite,” Emily says, poking around in the grass to look for ladybugs. “Sokolov said it’s the third-hottest. In _recorded_ history, anyway. He gets annoyed when people aren’t specific about that.”

“Hmph,” is Alexi’s only reply. She’s watching the other side of the courtyard, where Corvo and Captain Curnow are still engaged in their own sparring match. They seem pretty evenly-matched in skills, although Emily suspects Corvo’s taking it easy—both for Curnow’s sake and for his own. Sokolov’s threatened to formally relieve Corvo from duty, as is his right as the Royal Physician, if Corvo breaks his wrist again before it even heals all the way; and Corvo, more than anyone Emily has ever met, doesn’t take well to vacation time, so unsurprisingly that’s the threat that finally has made him listen.

“I wish he wouldn’t spar at all when he’s injured,” Emily grumbles. “He did it when I was little, too. Mother hated it.”

“Oh, so lack of self-preservation runs in the family?” Alexi asks innocently.

“Hey,” Emily protests.

Alexi laughs. “It’s okay. I’m no better—my commanding officer told me that if I kept placing first in every drill and volunteering for extra shifts besides, he’d get me promoted to a desk job.”

“Oh no,” Emily says, pretending to be horrified. “That would be awful. How would you even survive?”

Alexi rolls her eyes. “Smartass.”

Emily hums in response and hefts herself onto her elbows to peer over onto Alexi’s other side. “What are those for?” Alexi’s digging through a batch of clover for wildflowers, and she’s got a stack of twenty or so already.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Alexi says, grinning. Emily snorts. Neither of them has ever been good at being patient.

Well, she supposes, maybe Alexi’s gotten a little better at it since joining the City Watch a few months ago. They commissioned her as soon as she turned eighteen, citing her bravery in protecting the Empress from the Regenters years ago (Emily’s leg twitches unconsciously, thinking about it. It’s long since healed, and she only limps a little during humid weather, but she still hates remembering that time.) Alexi seems thrilled with her job, so far, though Emily can’t imagine why. There appear to be an awful lot of squad inspections. Emily’s supervised a few of them herself, even, and all that happens is that the officers stand around sweating while Emily tries to look simultaneously important and serene, the way Callista tried to teach her but never quite managed all the way.

It’s worth it, though. It makes never fails to make Alexi smile when Emily visits the barracks. Alexi comes to the Tower all the time, so Emily guesses it’s only fair if she goes to Alexi sometimes too. It was much easier when Alexi lived here in the servant quarters with her parents, who still work in the Tower kitchens, but it isn’t like the walk to the barracks is _that_ much further.

“Alright,” Alexi says. “It’s ready.”

“Hmm?” Emily grunts. She wonders how long she’s been zoned out; she doesn’t even remember closing her eyes. The sun is wonderfully warm, and she feels like she’s been jerked back from the very edge of sleep.

She opens her eyes and squints at the sudden bright light; dark circles spots dance around her vision, and it takes a moment to decipher the world beyond them. Corvo and Curnow have stopped sparring and have gone to stand in the shade, talking about something that Emily can’t quite hear from over here. And Alexi… is holding out a flower crown.

“What,” Emily says.

She’s still half-asleep. Her eyes keep sliding past the flower crown to Alexi, whose clothes are damp with sweat and skin is gleaming bright in the sunshine. Her muscles flex as she shifts closer. Emily shuts her eyes hard, opens them again, and stares determinedly at the flower crown. “What’s this for?”

“For you, silly,” Alexi says with a laugh, and reaches up to drop the crown on Emily’s head.

She spends a few moments arranging it to perfection. Emily just lies there, eyes half-lidded and grinning like a fool. She’s worn a crown more than once or even a hundred times in her life, and she’s worn all sorts of crowns, of the purest metals and gleaming with flawless gems; but she thinks this crown, the leaves of which are tugging at her hair and are going to be impossible to detangle later on, might be her favorite.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, and Alexi says, “You’re welcome,” and Emily thinks they might have stayed there forever, smiling at each other, if Corvo did not walk over just then.

“Trying to set a new fashion trend?” he asks, with a chuckle at Emily’s crown, and a thoughtful look in his eyes as he glances between Emily and Alexi. “I’m not sure it’ll catch on with the court, but outstanding effort.”

Emily throws a pebble in his general direction and it bounces off his nose. “You don’t get to talk,” she informs him. “You’ve worn the same coat for twenty years, every day that it’s not as hot as today. Next time you make fun of me, I’m going to commission a tailor to design you a whole new wardrobe—and I will find that coat of yours, wherever you’re hiding it right now, and throw it to the hagfish.”

Alexi giggles. Corvo fakes a wounded expression. “What’s wrong with my coat? It makes me look dashing. Geoff, back me up here.”

“Well…” Curnow drags the word out, grinning sheepishly.

Corvo shakes his head, sighing dramatically. “Is there no one I can trust?”

Alexi slings an arm around Emily’s shoulders. Emily takes a breath so sharp it actually hurts as Alexi’s hold tightens around her, and her laughter cuts off. She realizes, abruptly, that she’s shivering despite the heat. She desperately wishes that Alexi would move away, and at the same time she never wants her to let go.

Alexi doesn’t seem to notice her predicament.

“This is an intervention, Lord Corvo,” she says, tone deathly serious. “The coat needs to go.”

**four**

Flowers, Alexi decides, have three times in the past been showed as a tried-and-true way to make Emily smile. Even if it’s only for a brief moment. So what better way to confess her love to Emily than with a bouquet symbolizing her passion, her adoration, the very depths of her heart’s desire? And she’ll go to a professional shop; this occasion deserves better than a ratty bunch of handpicked blossoms. There’s a shop in the Estate District, one that she’s heard is popular among the younger nobles, and it’ll do perfectly.

Alexi sighs.

She’s skipping over a step. Getting the bouquet is the _second_ step. Wait, no, it’s the _third_. Because the first step is: realize you’re in love with your best friend. She’s done that one already. But she hasn’t done the second, which is—

Panic.

Her pillow isn’t enough to muffle the sound of her screaming, apparently. One of her bunkmates comes to check on her. “Are you okay?” she asks, eyeing the sight of the City Watch’s golden girl curled up under five layers of blankets in the middle of the afternoon with no small amount of trepidation. Alexi doesn’t blame her. She’d be having some trepidation, too, if she wasn’t about four levels beyond that.

“I’m in love with the Empress of the Isles,” she says despairingly.

Her bunkmate stares at her for a long moment. “Right,” she says. “Can’t help you there.”

“Thanks anyway,” Alexi says, and drops her face back into the pillow. Her throat hurts too much to scream any more, and it wasn’t very therapeutic, anyway.

She feels a bit tired out now, though, so maybe it wasn’t completely useless. In any case, she thinks she’s gotten enough of the panic over with to proceed to the next step; flowers. The _perfect_ flowers, to be specific.

The flower shop in the Estate District, it turns out, does not have the perfect flowers. They all look… so fancy, and so… boring. Meant for fancy, boring nobles and their fancy, boring mansions.

Alexi buys a bouquet of void-roses that shift from obsidian to ocean blue in the right light. They don’t look half as lovely as the ones in the Tower gardens. She regrets coming here, but she would have felt terrible if she didn’t buy anything after wasting the shop assistant’s time for nearly an hour. The void-roses cost more than Alexi earns in a month’s wages, but she makes sure to leave a handsome tip anyway.

She half-expects the flowers to droop over the second she exits the shop, but they stay as stiffly upright as ever. She has the uncomfortable, baffling feeling that they’re glaring at her.

It feels like an ill omen, but she’s come this far.

She practices what she’s going to say on the way to the Tower—or, at least, she means to practice. She doesn’t come up with much. “I’m in love with you, Em,” seems to about sum it up, but it’s also not very romantic. And while Emily’s never seemed to care much for the romantic, Alexi feels like this moment is important and should be as memorable as possible.

Alexi swallows and tugs at her collar. She feels dizzy. All of this depends on if Emily even returns her feelings. She may not—and Alexi wouldn’t blame her, not in the least, she’s not one of those jerks who can’t accept rejection. But…

Well. It would still hurt.

She runs smack-dab into Lord Corvo on her way to Emily’s room. They collide coming around a corner, and she nearly falls; he steadies her with a murmured apology, and sets about collecting the scattered stack of papers he’s dropped. She breathes a sigh of relief; the flowers aren’t too crushed, fortunately. She sets them on a side table and crouches down to help.

“What are these for?” she asks, pausing to scan over one of the papers. It looks like a report—and not a security report, either, but more like the sort of reports that Emily looks over every evening.

Corvo grins ruefully. He’s holding the reports a distance away from him, like they’re vipers about to bite. “Emily wanted the night off, so going through these falls to me. I really shouldn’t have said yes, not when she needs to be readying things for the Duke’s visit tomorrow, but she’s been working dawn to dusk lately. She could use the break.”

Alexi hums in agreement. “Do you know why she wanted the night off? I wanted to talk to her, but I don’t want to bother her if she’s in the middle of something important.”

Corvo’s expression shifts to a complicated mix of a grin and a scowl. “She wouldn’t tell me when I asked her, but I’m willing to bet she’s off with that noble from Morley, Liege Wyman.”

“Oh?” Alexi says. “Why do you think that?” Wyman’s nice enough, but Alexi can’t imagine why Emily would pay them any particular attention.

Corvo huffs a laugh, although he doesn’t look entirely pleased. He scoops up the last of the papers and holds out his hand for Alexi’s. “They’re all she’s talked about for weeks—I’ve never seen her this smitten. I’m surprised she hasn’t barraged you with comments about Wyman this and Wyman that.” He sighs. “She reminds me of myself when Jessamine and I started courting.”

Alexi is frozen. Her limbs have gone static, her breathing seeming suddenly loud in her own ears, and she feels a horrible squeezing sensation in her chest, like an icy hand has closed tight around her heart.

“Oh,” she says.

“Yeah,” Corvo says. “I really am happy for her… and it’s not my place to object, anyway, she’s twenty years old… but… as a parent, it takes some getting used to.”

He doesn’t seem to notice Alexi’s sudden silence, or the stricken expression on her face. He goes quiet for a few moments, clearly preoccupied with his own thoughts. Probably sad, nostalgic, fatherly thoughts. Alexi wonders if he even remembers that she’s in the room. But then he spots the flowers where she set them down. He’s not a fool; the realization spreads over his face in an instant. “ _Oh._ ”

“Excuse me, Lord Corvo,” she mumbles. “I’m—I’m going to go. I don’t want to interrupt Emily’s date.”

She thinks he says something, as she turns and walks away, her back straight and head held high and ribs aching like she’s been punched, but she doesn’t hear him and she doesn’t look back.

**five**

The fifth time Emily gets flowers from Alexi isn’t only the fifth time, not really. She never got them the fourth time, and there’ve been times since. Small little tokens of congratulations, here and there over the years. But these are the five times that matter most, Emily will realize later on – when she’s belowdecks on the _Dreadful Wale,_ lying in the cramped, hard little cot in her cabin, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the engine hum, feeling it in her bones. There will be many long hours spent like that. There will be a lot of time to think.

But that is then, and this is now, and now Emily is sitting on the steps of the gazebo where her mother died. She’s leaning against one of the columns, its sharp ridges pressing into her spine and the marble cold even through her thick linen shirt. It’s a chilly night. It feels fitting.

“She would be proud of you,” Alexi says, taking a seat close but not so close that Emily feels boxed in. There is something wide and empty about being here, staring at the vast sky and letting the empty and the cold seep into her bones and her mind and her soul. It’s not a bad feeling, and she doesn't mind the distance between Alexi and herself.

“I think so too,” Emily says quietly. “I know I am not—as good an empress as she was. No one could ever be. But she fought for laws regarding regulations on the whale oil trade for many years, and I think she would be glad that they’ve been passed.”

“I bet she would. And _I,_ also, am _certainly_ very proud of you,” Alexi says, and Emily turns to see a fleeting grin, as bright as the unclouded moon above them, pass over Alexi’s face as she holds out – a bouquet of flowers. Of course.

They’re little round blue ones, and Emily doesn’t know the name, but they’re very pretty and she wishes she did.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, taking them and tracing the edges of the petals. As soft as a spring breeze, like ghosting your fingers over the very surface of a bubbling stream. “I love them.”

Alexi brushes it off. “These are nothing.” She beams with delight, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “You should see the display Wyman has waiting for you.”

Emily hums. “I look forward to it. They don’t do things by half-measures, that’s for sure.”

Alexi just nods. She shifts to lean back against another column and looks away from Emily, staring out over the horizon instead. The space between them is not tense, or unpleasant, but there is something in Alexi’s almost-imperceptibly hunched posture, and her muted expression, that just _aches._ Emily longs, suddenly, to wrap Alexi in a tight hug and hold her close until Alexi is again as brilliant and vibrant as a sunrise, as unstoppable, as untarnished by the sadness of the world. Alexi has always been strong for Emily, always protected her, and Emily wants to do the same for Alexi, for once.

She swallows hard and stares at Alexi. Her scrutiny reveals nothing, only vague thoughts and emotions that Emily can’t begin to decipher. Something unsettling is rising in her chest. Unconsciously, her fingers curl into fists, not of anger, but frustration as she tries to puzzle it out. Her nails leave purple half-moon marks on her palms.

She’s starting to wonder if she’s missed something.

**\+ one**

As if life isn’t complicated enough already, a lot of things happen not too long after that small victory. Delilah Kaldwin takes the throne. Emily becomes a fugitive. Alexi dies.

Then, Emily gets the throne back.

It was a lot more complicated than that. There’s still much to the story that Alexi hasn’t heard, yet. But she knows that a lot of people have died in the last few weeks. Not as many as could have. But enough that the world is still off-kilter, limping along on unsteady legs. The people move on, slowly. The dead don’t come back.

Except for Alexi.

It helps that she didn’t actually die, she supposes. It helps that Curnow snuck into the Tower to find Corvo and Emily and found Alexi passed out from blood loss and clinging to life only by the tips of her fingernails. It helps that he took her to a doctor in the Flooded District whose name Alexi never got, but she owes her life to them. She plans on going back and thanking them when matters around the Tower calm down. When she isn’t busy spending every day hunting down the last of Delilah’s coven, and every night in Emily’s chambers, holding the Empress of the Isles as she weeps and screams and fights with herself, wracked with guilt over the lives she’s taken. Many of them were no one important. They were just in the way.

Alexi is a Captain of the Watch. She’s killed more people than she wants to remember. She understands exactly what Emily’s feeling, because she’s felt it before too.

She wishes desperately that Emily never had to experience this.

But it gets better, over time. Emily gets better. Time heals all wounds eventually, whether you like it or not, and that doesn’t mean that the scars don’t still ache, but Emily’s strong. The strongest person Alexi knows. They’ll be alright, both of them. Maybe, as idealistic as it sounds, _everyone_ will be alright.

“It’s not idealistic – everyone _will_ be,” Emily says determinedly when Alexi shares the sentiment, one night while they’re avoiding a party on one of the more secluded balconies of the Tower. “I can’t make up for what’s been done already, but I won’t fail the Empire a second time.” Her eyes lock onto Alexi’s, and there’s a fierceness there that takes Alexi’s breath away and makes something warm and pleasant settle in her chest. “I won’t fail _you_ again, Alexi. Not ever. I swear it.”

“Em, you never failed me in the first place,” Alexi says thickly.

“I did.” Emily closes her eyes. “Believe me. I did.”

Alexi knows it’s pointless to argue, so she doesn’t. She puts a hand on Emily’s shoulder and is just – there. With her.

“I broke up with Wyman,” Emily blurts out.

Alexi lets the silence stretch on for a few moments while she tries to figure out how to reply. She finally settles on, “I know.” Everyone does. While it wasn’t like anyone witnessed shouting matches between them, the stiff awkwardness between Emily and Wyman now has been clear as day ever since Emily came back.

“They were amazing,” Emily mumbles. “I loved them. So much. And then the coup happened and—I _still_ love them, Alexi, but I don’t know if they love me anymore. Or maybe it’s that they _do_ love me, but they don’t want to. When I’m with them it seems like all they can see is the blood on my hands, and they try to ignore it, pretend like nothing’s changed, but then that’s all I can think about, because everything _has_ changed. There _is_ blood on my hands. Ignoring it won’t make it go away.” Her hands are gripping the railing tight enough that it must hurt, but she unclenches one enough to lift it and rest it over Alexi’s hand on her shoulder. “You know all this. You know what I’ve done. But you haven’t left. Why, Alexi?”

“You know why,” Alexi says, so quietly she isn’t sure Emily will hear her.

But she does.

“Yeah.” Emily breathes in and out, in and out, jerky movements that make her body tremble like a plucked string. “Yeah. I guess I do know.”

They stand there for a long while, in the quiet and each other’s presence. They don’t leave the balcony until the sun is starting to rise on the horizon, and the cascade of color from black to blue to orange to yellow makes Alexi feel like the emotions that she’s kept for so long pushed down to a small corner of her heart have now been spilled onto a canvas in the sky above.

Months pass. Emily… thinks.

Thinks some more, anyway. She figured a lot of things out on the _Dreadful Wale,_ but that doesn’t mean she’s ready to _do_ something about them yet.

And then a year has passed, and she _is._

On the anniversary of retaking her throne, Emily doesn’t go to the celebration. The party is large enough that the guests fill the biggest ballroom in the Tower like packed eels in a tin, and loud enough that it can be heard a district away; no one will notice her absence, except Corvo, who she’s already told that she wouldn’t be there.

She goes to the Tower gardens instead. She passes by the place where she met Alexi for the first time fifteen years ago, and she lingers there for a few moments. There were sunflowers, she remembers. Sunflowers and a ginger-haired young girl who may as well have been the human version of sunflowers, and light, and a river rushing and tossing in the sort of summer thunderstorm that you feel in your bones and in your soul. If ever something could come near to describing Alexi, that was it.

Emily walks on, and she finds the bushes of carefully-cultivated red roses. She crouches down in front of the smallest bush and breathes in its scent, leaning in close enough that she has to put her hands out to steady herself. Her fingers sink a little into the damp grass.

It’s cliché, she knows. Red roses for confessions of love. She doesn’t really mind.

She picks one, two, three. Careful to avoid touching the thick, spiky thorns. She hears gravel crunch on the path, and she turns, keeping her hands behind her back.

Alexi is still dressed for the party; she would have gotten Emily’s note only a few minutes ago, after all. She’s wearing the same suit she wore when she was promoted to Captain. It’s emerald green and sleek, and unadorned by glitter or jewels or gold. She’s never liked expensive things, and she doesn’t need them, anyway. Her eyes are half-lidded, soft. There is a glow about her like a goddess from the stories Jessamine used to tell.

“I didn’t expect to find _you_ here,” Alexi says, a twist of puzzlement to her mouth. She doesn’t look displeased, though. In a moment she’s smiling. She’s radiant, and Emily couldn’t look away from her if she wanted to. Alexi doesn’t look away either.

“Who did you expect?” Emily asks, taking a step toward her. Then another. Alexi tilts her head, watching Emily approach.

“I thought it would be my commanding officer,” she says. “Or someone like that. And it would be for something about a security issue, I guess. There usually is at this sort of thing.”

Emily smiles and shakes her head. “Don’t worry. There’s no security issue.”

“You say that now,” Alexi warns, smiling back. “But the Boyles haven’t arrived yet.”

Emily laughs a little. “Yeah, there’s that.”

They’re almost face-to-face at this point. Less than a meter separates them. Alexi’s face is starkly outlined by moonlight. Emily is nearly more terrified than she’s ever been in her life.

“Em.” Alexi turns, and now the moonlight is lighting up her hair but Emily can’t see her expression at all. “Why did you ask me to come here?”

She adds, a bit of laughter in her voice, “And what are you hiding behind your back?”

Emily swallows. She feels stiff and frozen. She’s faced down men with blades and guns, and it was easier than this.

“These,” she says, and holds out the roses.

Alexi goes quiet.

“You’re always giving me flowers,” Emily says, forcing herself to continue even as she can feel her own pulse jumping wildly in her throat. “Never red roses, but—I wanted to give you them, because… because…” She’s faltering.

“Em.”

Emily stops short.

Alexi shifts, and just a little bit of moonlight ghosts over her cheeks. Her smile is wide and genuine. “I don’t bite, you know.”

She takes the roses, and Emily sees her wince when she pricks her finger on a thorn. Emily curses herself. She should have wrapped the stems in paper or something.

But Alexi doesn’t look annoyed.

“Emily,” she says, stepping closer. “What are you trying to say?”

“What I should have said a long time ago,” Emily says, and her voice goes hoarse with the last few words as she feels something in her throat choke up.

“Maybe. But…” Alexi lets the flowers drop to the grass as she closes the remaining distance between them, and rests her hands on Emily’s shoulders. Her breath leaves a spot of warmth on Emily’s cheek. “Now is a good time to say it, too.”

And Emily thinks, _she’s right._

They’ve known each other for more than half of their lives. Emily knows Alexi as well as she knows herself. She _knows_ that she’s not the only one who feels this, that Alexi feels it too. It doesn’t make it any easier to draw the words from the space in her chest. Regrets surface first, much more quickly. Hesitations. Mistakes. There have been so many of them.

But—

There has been so much _good,_ too. And that outweighs the mistakes by far.

So Emily thinks about her sunflower girl. The girl who was too stubborn to ever give up on Emily, and the girl who put her on the ground in twenty seconds flat, and then wove a flower crown for her. The girl who’s cared about her and supported her, and always saw just Emily instead of her titles or the things she’s done. The girl who’s standing in front of Emily right now. Waiting for her to answer.

“I love you,” Emily says, and she’s not afraid anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> title from “i wanna be your girlfriend” by girl in red.
> 
> also i haven't read any of the dishonored novels so this may contradict canon in some places ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> i hope you enjoyed it! :)


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